Critical Role: Shelter
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: Keyleth chases down Vex in the immediate aftermath. Major spoilers for episode 85.


"Not now, Keyleth."

Keyleth's heart is pounding too-loud in her ears, and not just from taking the steps three at a time. Now that she's caught up with Vex, now that she can hear the catch in her breathing, now that she can see her clenched jaw and narrowed eyes, she doesn't know what to say. She's not good at this, never has been, but hells, maybe there are only so many harsh words you can hear from family before they stop meaning anything, because she reaches out and grabs Vex's hand and starts walking.

"Keyleth." It's more of a resigned sigh than a rebuke, the special brand of exasperation that sometimes gets under Keyleth's skin because it's just a little bit condescending, just a little bit of a jab at her naiveté. "I think I just want to be alone."

Not trusting herself to speak around the lump in her throat, Keyleth squeezes Vex's hand distractedly, and pauses, unsure of her direction after the headlong dash through the corridors. She can find her way through forests and mountains and even open sky without losing her path, but the human-built enclosure of the castle still trips her up, sometimes, much as she's come to think of it as another home. Now the labyrinthine walls feel like a betrayal of that budding familiarity, and the knot in her chest tightens at the thought.

Vex sighs, pulling her hand free and crossing her arms. "Two lefts to the main gate. Come on, then. Let's go find something to drink that's strong enough to beat Grog at arm-wrestling."

They walk outside in a numb silence, but their footsteps escape now to the open air instead of echoing and reverberating off the closed-in walls, and Keyleth finds she can breathe a little easier. When Vex starts to rub her arms against the cold, Keyleth lights her hands and stands nearer, and Vex says, "Thanks," in a small, choked voice.

"I'm sorry," Keyleth says, finally, to fill the silence. "That was... unfair, the crack he made about your dad."

Vex's lips quirk upward, baring teeth. "Nothing about that conversation was fair."

"That's probably true." Keyleth moves to scratch an itch on her nose, then remembers the flames on her hands and thinks better of it. "If you really want to be alone, I can go on ahead. I'm sorry. I panicked, and I–"

"It's fine," Vex says. "I get it. You don't have to apologize for that."

There's a little alarm that goes off in Keyleth's head when she hears herself talking too much, but she's never really figured out what to do when it starts ringing. "I was worried about you. I mean, I'm worried about everyone, but I wanted to make sure you're okay. Not that I don't think you can handle it, I just think it's really not something that works well when you're by yourself, because I started thinking, you know, maybe this is how it ends, after all the dragons and everything. Maybe this is how it ends–"

Vex stops in her tracks with an explosive sigh, then spins on her heel and catches Keyleth's face in her hands. "Hey. I'm not going anywhere, okay? Not yet, anyway. Not this time. But sometimes people leave no matter how much you want them to stay."

The years stretch back behind Keyleth, a yawning chasm of time spent following somebody else's footprints. "I know."

A startled flicker in Vex's eyes, exasperation shifting to apology. She taps Keyleth on the cheek once more, then sighs and backs away. "Yeah. I guess you would."

Keyleth can't quite bring herself to lead the way to Percy's favored drinking-hole, a tavern with history practically oozing from the walls, but apparently Vex is equally at a loss, because they walk in meandering silence for some time until they find themselves standing beneath the Sun Tree.

"I hate this," Vex says, softly. "I hate him for doing this to us."

The tiny buds of green starting to sprout from the lower branches blur in Keyleth's watering vision. "That's not true."

"Keyleth, I'm not just fucking saying it. I'm not gonna sugar-coat it. I hate him. I hate him, and I hate all of us, and sometimes I even hate this place with its... with its walls and its expectations and its responsibilities. Right now I hate everything so much I could scream."

Keyleth shrugs, swallowing hard past the lump in her throat. "When I was back home and I felt like that, sometimes I'd find a place where the winds were blowing especially hard, and I'd just... yell as loud as I could. The wind would pick it up and blast it out over a cavern or something. With all the echoing, any sound I made felt amplified, like the roar of a god."

"Huh." Vex blinks, glances back at her. "I just used to stomp into my room and scream into a pillow and sometimes run away from home."

Her dubious expression startles a smile from Keyleth, but Vex only looks away, hunching her shoulders. "Hey," Keyleth says. "This sucks."

"Yeah," Vex says. "That about sums it up. I really thought we'd won, this time."

"Fuck the dragons," Keyleth says, reflexively.

"Fuck the dragons," Vex says, like she's returning a salute. "And fuck him. As he was so fond of saying, we don't need him, anyway."

"Maybe we don't need him," Keyleth says. "Doesn't mean we don't still want him around."

Vex turns her head so quickly that she has to push some of her hair out of her eyes. "Do you ever get–" she starts, then lowers her voice to a hiss as a couple of passersby turn to stare. "Do you ever get sick of being so... so you? Do you ever get sick of pretending we're all one big happy family? Because we're not, Keyleth. We haven't been for ages. Not all of us have a dad who gives two shits, and not all of us have reason to believe family's anything other than a knife that hurts a little bit more when it stabs you in the back."

Keyleth's more surprised at her own numbness than at the outburst itself; her nerves have taken on the battle-weariness that makes everything feel distant. "Not all of us had a brother who'd die for us, either. I... I think love isn't a guarantee, and sometimes things break, and maybe things always break eventually, and it hurts so much more when they do, but if I've learned anything in the past few months, it's that it's worth the risk. It's always worth the risk." She chokes out a laugh. "I hate him too, okay? Mostly for what he made us say to him, for what he's going to make us say to each other. But I said it after the sunken tomb, and I'll just keep saying it until you believe it: I can't lose you, too."

They're quiet for a long time, the only sound the faint crackling of fire in Keyleth's palms. Finally Vex shifts her weight and leans into Keyleth with one shoulder. "You're kind of the worst, you know?" she says, but she softens the words with a shaky smile.

"I know." Keyleth douses the flames on one hand to scrub a palm against her teary eyes. "Hey. I know a really good tea shop that was just opening up the last time we were here."

Vex winces. "Keyleth..."

"Don't ask me how they do it, but there's a ridiculous amount of alcohol involved."

Vex just stares at her for a moment, like she's trying to work out some sort of complicated trick-shot, then shakes her head. "Lead on."


End file.
